Curious ... NASA's Mars rover shows a scoop full of sand and dust lifted by the rover's first use of the scoop on its robotic arm.

"The rover team decided to refrain from using the rover's robotic arm on October 8 due to the detection of a bright object on the ground that might be a piece from the rover," NASA said in a statement.

"Curiosity is acquiring additional imaging of the object to aid the team in identifying the object and assessing possible impact, if any, to sampling activities."